Kidney & BOD hail Ireland

The British

& Irish Lions

Tour to New Zealand 2017

Kidney & BOD hail Ireland

Declan Kidney and Brian O'Driscoll have praised Ireland after they crushed England's hopes of a RBS Six Nations Grand Slam.

Ireland had struggled to hit top gear in the Championship before facing Martin Johnson's men with two wins and two losses under their belt.

But the men in green finished with a bang as they clinically disposed of England.

Johnson's men still hung on to the Championship crown after Wales fell to defeat in Paris but Ireland were delighted to halt an historic Slam.

"England will come again, they've a lot of youth in their side and they've come through," said Kidney.

"But it's just a credit to our side two years ago. To win five matches on the trot is extremely difficult. We only had two home games, England were coming off three but it's difficult to travel."

Last seasons Six Nations player of the year Tommy Bowe grabbed the opening try before O'Driscoll pounced with his record-breaking try.

The three times Lions tourist surpassed Ian Smith's 78-year-old 24 try record in the Championship with his 25th touchdown in the competition.

Kidney was pleased to see his captain break yet another landmark but insists the 2005 Lions skipper was solely focussed on winning rather than personal awards.

"I'm delighted for Brian he's been an excellent captain through some difficult times," added Kidney.

"He's stayed steadfast and the fact he's picked up a nice little accolade like that won't worry him. He just wants to see a green jersey touch the ball down".

O'Driscoll echoed those sentiments and hailed his side for making some amends for a frustrating Championship.

"It's a nice thing to think about, but I've never been one for individual accolades," said O'Driscoll. "You win and lose as a team and we'll very much enjoy this win as a team.

"Individual accolades are what you think about when your career is finished, but I hope I have a bit left me in so I won't dwell on it.

"We felt we had a big performance in us. We'd been threatening at times during the first four games but lacked the composure we showed here.

"We showed real intensity and this was a complete performance. The pack fronted up and along with the control of Jonathan Sexton were the winning of the game.

"Of course there's a little frustration that it's taken until the last game of the Six Nations to produce that, but those games are gone. All we could do was put in a performance that we felt we owed ourselves more than anyone else.

"We are the ones who know what hard graft goes in and the sacrifices made. I never believed we became a bad team in a year, we just perhaps hadn't got the breaks and been as clinical as we had in the past.

"We put that right to some degree. It was an impressive performance and the result took care of itself. We weren't a million miles away in the other games but here the ball stuck and hopefully we can push on from this. There's not much point in having a big performance every four or five games."